Monthly Archives: August 2013

Yesterday at NRO my daughter Eliana explored the friendship of future New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker with a dodgy gentleman named T-Bone. T-Bone, it turns out, is a figment of the imagination of Elizabeth Warren’s Native American ancestors. (That would be Senator Warren to you, buddy. If Erich Segal were around to rewrite Love Story today, the tag line would have to be: “Democrat means never having to say »

The British House of Commons today defeated a motion by the government to take military action against Syria “if necessary.” The motion was watered down to provide for another vote, pending findings by the U.N., before Britain would take part in direct military action. It still failed by a vote of 285-272. This result is a major embarrassment of British Prime Minister David Cameron. He, after all, has played a »

Disregarding race is the new “racism”: that is the position of the modern Left. Which raises the question: is it unconstitutional for American governments to treat members of all races equally? If you think that is an absurd question, you haven’t been paying attention. Via InstaPundit, this observation from Nick Rosenkranz at the Volokh Conspiracy: Fifty years ago today, Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke these immortal words: “I have a »

A comprehensive disaster like the Obama administration can’t be summed up in one statistic, but the one that comes closest is labor force participation. The combined effect of many misguided policies–Obamacare, ballooning spending, massive debt, tax increases, subsidizing of inefficient energy, anti-growth regulation, encouragement of food stamp fraud, and many more–has been to drive many millions of Americans out of the labor force. Express Employment Professionals has produced a white »

Answer: Just about everything. At least when it comes to Reagan. I’ve been closeted away all day putting the final touches on a large public lecture I’m delivering tonight at 7 pm at the university, on the subject of why there are so few conservatives in higher education, and I’ll post some excerpts here tomorrow. But for the last several days I’ve been working with Kiron Skinner, Paul Kengor, and »

Where did the fast-food protests around the country come from? In case you missed them, they are taking place at various franchisees of Burger King, Domino’s, McDonald’s and Wendy’s near you in cities including Chicago, Detroit, Flint, Kansas City, Milwaukee, New York, and St. Louis. So report CBS News and the Los Angeles Times, among many others. The protesters seek to prevent franchisees from hiring entry level employees without marketable »

According to the Daily Caller, via this editorial in Investors Business Daily, the Obama IRS is requiring American Legion posts (and, it appears, posts of other veterans groups) to provide proof of membership eligibility. Reportedly, the IRS demands that the American Legion provide it with DD-214 forms, the certificate of release of discharge from active duty, for every member. Posts that can’t or won’t comply face heavy fines. The targeting »

The Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty is an organization of chaplain endorsers, the faith groups that provides chaplains for the U.S. military and other agencies needing chaplains. According to this organization, the endorsers in the Chaplain Alliance speak for more than 2,000 chaplains serving the armed forces. The Chaplain Alliance has issued a press release alleging, based on a review of documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, that »

The uncreative destruction wrought by Obamacare on the economy commenced before it was adopted and has continued steadily through the promulgation of the regulations implementing the Rube Goldberg contraption wryly named the Affordable Care Act. Grace-Marie Turner provides an illustrative example in her Forbes column “It’s fact, not anecdote, that Obamacare is turning us into a part-time nation.” Obamacare’s mandate to provide the costly health insurance compliant with the law »

We wind up our preview of the new issue of the Claremont Review of Books (subscribe here) with Richard Samuelson’s essay “The genius of American citizenship.” Samuelson is assistant professor of history at California State University, San Bernardino, and a friend. I invited him to write something for us to introduce the piece and persuade readers to click on that link. Professor Samuelson writes: According to legend, when told that »

As John has noted, President Obama’s speech today at a rally commemorating the great civil rights march of 1963 was, not surprisingly, an exercise in partisan demagoguery. Even when Obama tried to “honest,” he didn’t quite get it right: And then, if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that during the course of 50 years, there were times when some of us claiming to push for change lost our way. »

Fifty years ago was the historic civil rights march on Washington, which was highlighted by Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech–the most memorable parts of which apparently were ad libbed. Paul has written memorably about attending that march as a boy; if you want to be reminded of why it was an important event, read his post. Today the Democratic Party staged a 50-year anniversary event on the »

I have documented many times the hysterical appeals and outrageous lies that the Democratic Party uses to raise money from its gullible followers. Today the Democrats sent out this fundraising email: From: Democrats 2014 [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2013 11:43 AM To: Hinderaker, John H. Subject: Boehner just went ballistic. Boehner Demands Medicare, Social Security And Medicaid Cuts To Raise Debt Limit Sadly, that headline isn’t true. John — »

In response to “Letten it be” a reader writes: I just called Tulane Law School to register a complaint regarding Dean James Letten. The call answerer in the Dean’s Office said that she could not comment on this situation, other than to say that she knew nothing about it and that the video is wrong and has been edited to make him look bad. Wait, I thought you knew nothing »

Charles Krauthammer said yesterday that if a U.S. attack on Syria isn’t about “regime change” than it is a “pointless exercise.” I disagree. An attack that truly weakens, but does not topple, the Assad regime would decrease the likelihood that Assad (and Iran/Hezbollah) will win the Syrian civil war; increase the possibility that Assad won’t again slaughter innocent people with chemical weapons; and strengthen the notion the international norm against »

Participating in the great civil rights march of 1963 didn’t exactly change my life. But it made my course more fixed, helping inspire me to become a lawyer and, in my first job as such, to work for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. That’s why I’ve written about the march on August 28 of almost every year I’ve blogged. Today, on the 50th anniversary of the march, I thought »

John mentions below that the satellite global temperature data continue to run flat (but the climate campaign rolls on run-flat tires, so never mind), but here’s another fun factoid just out: with the summer drawing toward a close, so far this summer in the US has experienced the fewest 100+ degree readings at temperature stations in 100 years. (See chart below.) What should be concluded from this? Precisely nothing. However, if »